I had take an online course on Gamification offered through
& Coursera
Conducted by Prof
Project Part III: Design Document
Now that you know the essential concepts about gamification and game design, it's time to use them. For this final task, we ask you to bring together creativity, technical feasibility, and business realities.
You are approached by Rashmi Horenstein, the CEO of ShareAll, a prominent company in the hot collaborative consumption space. (If you aren’t familiar with the concept, some good resources are CollaborativeConsumption.com and the March 9, 2013 cover story in the Economist.) She knows you are one of the top experts on gamification, which she has heard can revolutionize business. She asks you to present a proposal for a gamified system to take her business to the next level.
ShareAll’s mission is to make shared use of products and services as common as individual purchases. It follows the path of companies such as AirBnB, Buzzcar, and Uber, which allow sharing of particular products (cars, housing, etc). ShareAll’s patented technology makes it easy for consumers and business to share any product or service. ShareAll has also developed a global virtual currency, called Shares, which can be used to purchase access to any asset in the system. Shares can be exchanged for real money, and users can generate more Shares by sharing items or volunteering their time to complete tasks for others.
ShareAll charges a small transaction fee whenever Shares are generated, traded, or spent. Therefore, the more activity, the more money ShareAll makes. Horenstein tells you that she cares about the social benefits of sustainability. However, ShareAll is a for-profit company, with investments and partnerships from some of the world’s largest corporations, so profits matter. Horenstein believes gamification could significantly help ShareAll’s business. She is eager to read your ideas.
My Solution:
1. Define Business Objective:
ShareAll is into the business of collaborative consumption. They aid users to rent and share all kinds of products and services to individuals and business’. A dipstick into ShareAll’s business:
· Mission: make shared use of products and services as common as individual purchases
· Their technology enables customers to easily share with good user experience
· Shares are common mode of transaction
o Revenue is earned through transaction of shares
ShareAll want to look to gamify the system in order to:
· Acquire more customers,
· Engage Users,
· Induce repeated purchase
· Retain them and generate more business
2. Delineate target behaviors:
There will be two kinds of users on the system:
· Trader: one who has items up for renting
· Borrower: one who borrows items from the trader
Both of these are non-exclusive. That means, a person can be both a trader as well as a borrower
Objective of the gamified system is to encourage Customer/players to do more and more transactions of shares. Following will be expected behavior of the players which will in turn encourage more transactions of shares:
· Building reputation and network
o Profile Building: import profiles from as many social sites as possible. This helps to build reputation which is important when someone is looking to share something with others
o Invite your friends: Players can import their contacts from their social profile pages. With these network of friends they can build their community
· Make use of the service
o Items Sharing: Users are encouraged to put up as many items as possible for renting/sharing
o Taking up items on rent frequently
o Daily Visits: This will help building behavior (Reference: lecture 5.2 & 5.3)
· Be Interactive
o Participate: daily trade quest, contest etc
o Leave comments/feedback on players/traders profile whose items you have shared or rented
o Create their wishlist: can be used to set goals to achieve number of shares so that users can borrow the item required
o Report in-genuine traders
o ShareAll has apps Android, iOS, Windows phone, Windows 8 platform. Apart from this they will be present through connected TV & present on box like Roku, Playstation, Xbox etc. Users will be encouraged to download the app on all their devices and link their profile
This Gamification will have following matrix of measurement to deduce success of the implementation:
· Average daily users/average monthly users: this will determine users involvement
· Total number of shares present with each users: This will help to determines top users from others and also measures can be taken in order to balance the game (reference: Lecture12.2)
3. Describe your players:
Our TG/players will be existing users of AirBnB, BuzzCar, Uber etc. this is because they are already into the space and have experienced/consumed such a service so they are more likely to take up/use ShareAll. Also to widen the net our general description of a target group is:
Gender: Male/Female and corporate clients
Age: we will divide our target audience into three categories
· 12-20 (Reason the range is so wide is at the age of 12 or so kids who are active into video games would wish to swap CDs and DVDs with others)
· 21-55
· Corporate clients
Income group: would not want to define and restrict as the site targets a wide range of age group and will have multiple products from as cheap as a CD/DVD or as expensive as a designer chandelier or renting holiday home.
Psychographics: A person who needs a constant change around him and in his life. He cannot go and buy everything new at all times but sees renting as an optimal option to aid his quick changing taste and lifestyle.
4. Activity loop:
We will define the player’s journey here from onboarding, scaffolding and pathway to mastery. It will show us how the users move on in this game
For Onboarding process:
· Just like Monopoly game where players are given initial amount to start the game, even on shareAll initial few shares are allotted to on sign-up. On the homepage we will also have an introductory video explaining step by step how players can keep getting more shares for various activities that they perform
For Scaffolding process:
· Players are guided to Import their social profiles from sites like facebook, twitter, Tumblr etc which ShareAll gives reputation points on nature of the profile. some share allotted for this
1. This is done as reputation is more important on platforms that encourage collaborative consumption. Currently the only problem with collaborative consumption is how can you trust a trader or a borrower you do not know? One maintains multiple profiles on multiple social sites but there is no way to carry your reputation from one portal to another, you always start a fresh so having all your information at one place will help your reputation and people can trust you as a trader or a borrower
· Virtual tour guide will be placed here that will also show users how they can rent any product, upload their items to become a trader, how to buy shares etc
· Players are introduced through other various activities like
1. import you friend list/send request to all of them
2. Daily quests
3. Fill up your wish list
4. Download ShareAll app and link your profile
5. Frequent visits on the app or web portal
A guide video will also be placed on the homepage.
Pathway to Mastery:
· Once the users have completed their basic level of activities, they are on the escalator, now higher level of actives are exposed to them. Just like game Plants Vs Zombies different types of plans and zombies are introduced and higher levels. Other activities would be
1. Generate Shares by sharing items or volunteering their time to complete tasks for others like leaving feedback and giving someone reputation points
2. Reports in-genuine traders
Though the various activities mention above within the player journey, players up their own levels going through the various activity loops and getting on the progression loop.
5. Don’t forget the fun:
· Reputation is most important element in everyone’s life. By introducing ‘Reputation meter’ on the profile page of every user, he will be intrinsically be motivated to always maintain it between good to best levels to make themselves feel awesome. This will do two things:
1. He will always be genuine as a trader
2. As a player he will never try to misuse or manipulate the game (reference: Lecture: 11.3, gaming the game)
· Surprise element for daily visitors, they are gratified with some shares, discounts, etc since the prizes will vary it is likely to induce a Dopamine effect on the user and avoid the dangers of being on the Hedonic Treadmill (reference lecture 6.2)
· Users are motivated to become traders and traders are motivated to share more items regularly that they have not yet put up on their storefront. This is done by suggesting potential rental price if they have the product placed. Users are encouraged as they see potential to earn more bucks. Activating their extrinsic motivation
· Users can create a wish list and they can be encouraged to participate in the contest that can make them win more shares so that they get closer to renting the product and notified when the products are on further discount
· Relatedness and civic virtue: Special prizes and mentions for users who report errors in the system and in-genuine traders. This has a maco-effect on the business as more number of in-genuine traders can spoil the experience for larger user base.
· Player Levels: Player gains higher level on basis of number of transactions i.e. how many items has he rented, number of items he has as a trader, what is his reputation and his frequency of usage of ShareAll portal/app.
o Players at higher levels get discounts on transaction fees etc. Highest level player as a trader will also get free courier pick up service of his items that borrower has asked on rent
6. Deploy the appropriate tools
For the activities and fun elements mentioned above following tools will be deployed:
· Reputation Meter on player’s home page:
o Assumption: ShareAll has a software API which scans through profiles (information, their comments, what they share, average comments received etc) and calculates their reputation and puts it up on a meter
· Progression bar: this depends upon following:
o Profile page completion
o Importing profiles from other social sites
o Adding items on rent and becoming a trader
· Badges: for various activities:
o Super badge: for every level up
o Frequency of visit
o Getting the item that is a part of his wish list
o Reporting errors and in-genuine traders
o Increase in number of articles on traders’ storefront
· Friend circle:
o Bubble whenever some player’s friend signs up the bubble keeps increasing
Conducted by Prof
Project Part III: Design Document
Now that you know the essential concepts about gamification and game design, it's time to use them. For this final task, we ask you to bring together creativity, technical feasibility, and business realities.
You are approached by Rashmi Horenstein, the CEO of ShareAll, a prominent company in the hot collaborative consumption space. (If you aren’t familiar with the concept, some good resources are CollaborativeConsumption.com and the March 9, 2013 cover story in the Economist.) She knows you are one of the top experts on gamification, which she has heard can revolutionize business. She asks you to present a proposal for a gamified system to take her business to the next level.
ShareAll’s mission is to make shared use of products and services as common as individual purchases. It follows the path of companies such as AirBnB, Buzzcar, and Uber, which allow sharing of particular products (cars, housing, etc). ShareAll’s patented technology makes it easy for consumers and business to share any product or service. ShareAll has also developed a global virtual currency, called Shares, which can be used to purchase access to any asset in the system. Shares can be exchanged for real money, and users can generate more Shares by sharing items or volunteering their time to complete tasks for others.
ShareAll charges a small transaction fee whenever Shares are generated, traded, or spent. Therefore, the more activity, the more money ShareAll makes. Horenstein tells you that she cares about the social benefits of sustainability. However, ShareAll is a for-profit company, with investments and partnerships from some of the world’s largest corporations, so profits matter. Horenstein believes gamification could significantly help ShareAll’s business. She is eager to read your ideas.
My Solution:
1. Define Business Objective:
ShareAll is into the business of collaborative consumption. They aid users to rent and share all kinds of products and services to individuals and business’. A dipstick into ShareAll’s business:
· Mission: make shared use of products and services as common as individual purchases
· Their technology enables customers to easily share with good user experience
· Shares are common mode of transaction
o Revenue is earned through transaction of shares
ShareAll want to look to gamify the system in order to:
· Acquire more customers,
· Engage Users,
· Induce repeated purchase
· Retain them and generate more business
2. Delineate target behaviors:
There will be two kinds of users on the system:
· Trader: one who has items up for renting
· Borrower: one who borrows items from the trader
Both of these are non-exclusive. That means, a person can be both a trader as well as a borrower
Objective of the gamified system is to encourage Customer/players to do more and more transactions of shares. Following will be expected behavior of the players which will in turn encourage more transactions of shares:
· Building reputation and network
o Profile Building: import profiles from as many social sites as possible. This helps to build reputation which is important when someone is looking to share something with others
o Invite your friends: Players can import their contacts from their social profile pages. With these network of friends they can build their community
· Make use of the service
o Items Sharing: Users are encouraged to put up as many items as possible for renting/sharing
o Taking up items on rent frequently
o Daily Visits: This will help building behavior (Reference: lecture 5.2 & 5.3)
· Be Interactive
o Participate: daily trade quest, contest etc
o Leave comments/feedback on players/traders profile whose items you have shared or rented
o Create their wishlist: can be used to set goals to achieve number of shares so that users can borrow the item required
o Report in-genuine traders
o ShareAll has apps Android, iOS, Windows phone, Windows 8 platform. Apart from this they will be present through connected TV & present on box like Roku, Playstation, Xbox etc. Users will be encouraged to download the app on all their devices and link their profile
This Gamification will have following matrix of measurement to deduce success of the implementation:
· Average daily users/average monthly users: this will determine users involvement
· Total number of shares present with each users: This will help to determines top users from others and also measures can be taken in order to balance the game (reference: Lecture12.2)
3. Describe your players:
Our TG/players will be existing users of AirBnB, BuzzCar, Uber etc. this is because they are already into the space and have experienced/consumed such a service so they are more likely to take up/use ShareAll. Also to widen the net our general description of a target group is:
Gender: Male/Female and corporate clients
Age: we will divide our target audience into three categories
· 12-20 (Reason the range is so wide is at the age of 12 or so kids who are active into video games would wish to swap CDs and DVDs with others)
· 21-55
· Corporate clients
Income group: would not want to define and restrict as the site targets a wide range of age group and will have multiple products from as cheap as a CD/DVD or as expensive as a designer chandelier or renting holiday home.
Psychographics: A person who needs a constant change around him and in his life. He cannot go and buy everything new at all times but sees renting as an optimal option to aid his quick changing taste and lifestyle.
4. Activity loop:
We will define the player’s journey here from onboarding, scaffolding and pathway to mastery. It will show us how the users move on in this game
For Onboarding process:
· Just like Monopoly game where players are given initial amount to start the game, even on shareAll initial few shares are allotted to on sign-up. On the homepage we will also have an introductory video explaining step by step how players can keep getting more shares for various activities that they perform
For Scaffolding process:
· Players are guided to Import their social profiles from sites like facebook, twitter, Tumblr etc which ShareAll gives reputation points on nature of the profile. some share allotted for this
1. This is done as reputation is more important on platforms that encourage collaborative consumption. Currently the only problem with collaborative consumption is how can you trust a trader or a borrower you do not know? One maintains multiple profiles on multiple social sites but there is no way to carry your reputation from one portal to another, you always start a fresh so having all your information at one place will help your reputation and people can trust you as a trader or a borrower
· Virtual tour guide will be placed here that will also show users how they can rent any product, upload their items to become a trader, how to buy shares etc
· Players are introduced through other various activities like
1. import you friend list/send request to all of them
2. Daily quests
3. Fill up your wish list
4. Download ShareAll app and link your profile
5. Frequent visits on the app or web portal
A guide video will also be placed on the homepage.
Pathway to Mastery:
· Once the users have completed their basic level of activities, they are on the escalator, now higher level of actives are exposed to them. Just like game Plants Vs Zombies different types of plans and zombies are introduced and higher levels. Other activities would be
1. Generate Shares by sharing items or volunteering their time to complete tasks for others like leaving feedback and giving someone reputation points
2. Reports in-genuine traders
Though the various activities mention above within the player journey, players up their own levels going through the various activity loops and getting on the progression loop.
5. Don’t forget the fun:
· Reputation is most important element in everyone’s life. By introducing ‘Reputation meter’ on the profile page of every user, he will be intrinsically be motivated to always maintain it between good to best levels to make themselves feel awesome. This will do two things:
1. He will always be genuine as a trader
2. As a player he will never try to misuse or manipulate the game (reference: Lecture: 11.3, gaming the game)
· Surprise element for daily visitors, they are gratified with some shares, discounts, etc since the prizes will vary it is likely to induce a Dopamine effect on the user and avoid the dangers of being on the Hedonic Treadmill (reference lecture 6.2)
· Users are motivated to become traders and traders are motivated to share more items regularly that they have not yet put up on their storefront. This is done by suggesting potential rental price if they have the product placed. Users are encouraged as they see potential to earn more bucks. Activating their extrinsic motivation
· Users can create a wish list and they can be encouraged to participate in the contest that can make them win more shares so that they get closer to renting the product and notified when the products are on further discount
· Relatedness and civic virtue: Special prizes and mentions for users who report errors in the system and in-genuine traders. This has a maco-effect on the business as more number of in-genuine traders can spoil the experience for larger user base.
· Player Levels: Player gains higher level on basis of number of transactions i.e. how many items has he rented, number of items he has as a trader, what is his reputation and his frequency of usage of ShareAll portal/app.
o Players at higher levels get discounts on transaction fees etc. Highest level player as a trader will also get free courier pick up service of his items that borrower has asked on rent
6. Deploy the appropriate tools
For the activities and fun elements mentioned above following tools will be deployed:
· Reputation Meter on player’s home page:
o Assumption: ShareAll has a software API which scans through profiles (information, their comments, what they share, average comments received etc) and calculates their reputation and puts it up on a meter
· Progression bar: this depends upon following:
o Profile page completion
o Importing profiles from other social sites
o Adding items on rent and becoming a trader
· Badges: for various activities:
o Super badge: for every level up
o Frequency of visit
o Getting the item that is a part of his wish list
o Reporting errors and in-genuine traders
o Increase in number of articles on traders’ storefront
· Friend circle:
o Bubble whenever some player’s friend signs up the bubble keeps increasing
What I liked was...
peer 1 → Excellent work! The lay out you used made it easy to read.
peer 2 → [This area was left blank by the evaluator.]
peer 4 → Very good describtion of all possible elements, that can be used and good link to the video lectures
peer 5 → well explained system
What could have made this submission better was...
peer 1 → Nothing.
peer 2 → [This area was left blank by the evaluator.]
peer 3 → [This area was left blank by the evaluator.]
peer 4 →
more on how to get people engaged in the community of ShareAll - what
is needed to build the community and which problems are to be overcome
peer 5 → better formarting
Conducted by Prof